MINUTES

CURRICULUM COMMITTEE RETREAT

Friday, March 5, 2004

9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Room 409

Members Present:

Ken Alexander, Ed Bolds, Laurie Huffman, Mark McGregor, Don Kaiper, Kiran Kamath (Chairperson), Veronica Knott, Richard Livingston, Pam Perfumo, Georgette Pulos-Fulk (Secretary), Myra Snell, Eileen Valenzuela, Nancy Ybarra

Members Absent:

Kirsten Martin/JJ Stewart, Delores McNair, Shannon Ramirez, and rep from Counseling

  1. Welcome and review agenda for today’s retreat

The steering committee that planned today’s retreat is made up of: Richard Livingston, Nancy Ybarra, Eileen Valenzuela and Kiran Kamath. The topics are based on issues that have come up for clarification and discussion in the regular Curriculum Committee meetings. The goal of today’s retreat is to discuss the philosophical and other issues raised in the past, and to determine best practices and benchmarks of LMC’s model course outlines of record.

  1. Overview of new Accreditation Standards

Richard Livingston gave an overview of new accreditation standards. Old standards included asking the institution if it did a series of activities.

There has been a paradigm shift to look at effectiveness and accountability – or “what are the results?” Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are central to the new accreditation standards.

4 New Standards:

  • Institutional Commitment and Integrity to Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) - Do we accomplish what we say we do? Integrity of course outlines.
  • Institution offers high-quality instruction programs in recognized and emerging fields of study – Cycles of Evaluation, Planning and Improvement. Identify, assess and improve SLOs at the course level, the program level and the certificate/degree level.
  • Faculty and others responsible for student progress towards achieving stated Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) have, as a component of their evaluation, effectiveness in producing those learning outcomes – UF issue.
  • Institution relies on faculty, its academic senate or other appropriate structures, the curriculum committee, and academic administrators for recommendations about student learning programs and services - Standards of good (best) practices

The next accreditation visit will be under new standards. Midterm Accreditation Report is due this summer.

  1. Determining standards (benchmarks) of the LMC Model COOR

The goal of this discussion, facilitated by Myra Snell and Laurie Huffman, is to set standards or benchmarks for the LMC Model COOR. Myra distributed excerpts from Title V requirements, Academic Senate of California (Components of a Model Course Outline of Record, Nov 1995), The Curriculum Standards Handbook from the State Chancellor’s Office; and ACCJC Accreditation Standards related to Learning (Standard II).

Common themes in all these documents are:

  • Alignment/flow/integration between objectives, student learning outcomes, assessment and grading
  • To think in terms of overarching outcomes or broad objectives (“ten is be too many, one is not enough”)
  • To evaluate/grade based on demonstrated proficiency in the subject matter (evaluation related to outcomes). Clear basis for grading. Evaluate course objectives listed.
  • To have measurable outcomes
  • Courses must incorporate Critical Thinking and must be College Level
  • Assignments should reflect coverage of all course objectives and content.
  • Emphasis on Essay Writing

Implementation Strategy:

  • Redesign COOR form to encourage flow in thinking and course development (to incorporate alignment mentioned above). The importance of “alignment” needs to be communicated to the college.

Outcomes
 / Assignments/Activities
 / Grading Assessment, Criteria, Definition of Proficiency, Rubrics

  • Incorporate “prompts” in the COOR form to guide course developers
  • Develop a glossary of terms (examples: essay, overarching outcomes/objectives, college level)
  • Establish a sub-group to work on the re-design of the form.

Other considerations:

  • Practical COOR form (not too long)
  • Form should serve as a “thinking tool”
  • Form should support better course development, teaching and learning
  • Determine timeline for adoption
  • Have a support system to advise faculty on developing course outlines – Advisory committees, Curriculum Committee members serve as mentors, Staff Development, Up-to-date Curriculum Committee website, and Curriculum Handbook.

Volunteer sub-group to revise the COOR: Ken Alexander, Myra Snell, Laurie Huffman, Kiran Kamath. The group will report back to the Curriculum Committee at the April 7th meeting.

4.Relationship of instructional hours to units in course outlines

Richard Livingston facilitated this discussion.

The Carnegie Unit Concept is:

18 hrs lecture = 1 unit

54 hrs lab = 1 unit

At times, more hours are required of students than what they get unit credit for. Lab hours or “hours by arrangement” work in the same way. They represent WSCH or faculty-student contact hours.

Issues to consider:

  • Students should earn the units for the hours they put in. (Consider financial aid implications too)
  • Articulation – hours should match with UC/CSU for the same course
  • Departmental role. (Base hours on department recommendations?, Departmental consistency of lab hours for similar courses.)
  • Compare with other colleges. (LMC at one time had more hours than any other community college)
  • What is best for students (Some students need more time on task if they under prepared)
  • Should there be a policy or operating guidelines at LMC?

Committee decision:

  • The course outline should include a rationale if the lab hours are not 54 hours = 1 unit.
  • The revised COOR would have this prompt.

5.Textbook Information on the COOR

Kiran Kamath facilitated this discussion.

Issues to consider:

  • Course outline should include the name of text with author, publisher and date of publication.
  • “Not all instructors must use the same text, but a complete list of types used should be included in the course outline.” (Page 4, Components of a Model Course Outline of Record, ASCCC, November 1995)
  • Citations of texts and other reading materials must becurrent.
  • “In degree credit courses, texts should be written for college level students” (Page 9, Components…)
  • “If ‘instructor-designed materials’ are the only citation, a description of their scopeshould be in the outline and samples included.” (Page 9, Components….)

Committee decision:

  • The revised COOR form should include a prompt that the all materials for degree applicable courses must be college-level.
  • The glossary will include a definition of college-level.
  • The COOR can include one or several possible comparable books that would be used for the course. Other comparable books may be substituted.
  • The department may chose to list all the approved texts.
  • Textbook, title and date of publication are required for articulation.
  • The Curriculum Committee will presume that textbook has been approved by the Department since the COOR has been signed by the Department chair.

6. Pre-requisites, co-requisites and advisories – Standardizing where possible

Nancy Ybarra facilitated this discussion. The discussion on “standardizing pre-requisites where possible” was tabled to the next regular meeting of the Curriculum Committee on March 17th.

Today’s discussion is a follow-up to a detailed presentation by Nancy in Fall 2003 on pre-/co-requisites. The new 3 column form for documented content review for courses in sequence was discussed for adoption.

The following suggestions were made to revise the proposed new form:

  • 3 entry skills/knowledge required for the “targeted course” are adequate. Less than 3 would be acceptable, if appropriate.
  • Remove the rows and leave the columns as is.
  • Add signature of Curriculum Committee and date at the bottom of the page with other signatures – faculty, department.

Should we adopt the new Documented Content Review form for courses within a sequence? This would replace the back of the current LMC Pre-requisite/co-requisite validation form.

Motion to approve: Pam PerfumoSecond: Don Kaiper (Yes – unanimous)

7.Determining Standards (benchmarks) of the 900 Course Outline

Mark McGregor facilitated this discussion.

Issues to consider:

  • According to “Good Practices for Course Approval Processes”, Experimental Courses may be given some latitude in the extent to which the course meets the following 5 standard criteria for course outlines:

-Appropriateness to mission

-Need

-Assessment of quality

-Feasibility

-Compliance with and regulations

  • Level of review at LMC for Experimental courses – Balancing scrutiny with facilitating experimentation.
  • Timeline for offering experimental courses. Experimental courses should “typically” run for only one year. LMC’s operating procedure is now “three times”.
  • What is the course “experimenting” – Most “900” courses at LMC are from the Occupational programs because things change so rapidly.
  • Experimental courses are not accepted to meet general education or program major requirements for associate degree or certificates, nor are they to be submitted for IGETC approval.
  • They can be accepted for elective credit for Associate degree or for elective credit at CSU

Discussion and further clarification:

  • Suggestion to include a prompt on the newly revised Experimental Course Outline form indicating how long the course is approved until to be in compliance with Title V. “This course is approved until ______.
  • Suggestion to include a prompt on the newly revised supplement to the Experimental Course Outline form for information from the author on what the course is experimenting.
  • Mark McGregor and Richard Livingston will check on the degree applicability of experimental courses and return to the Curriculum Committee about the need for a statement on the form about it.
  • Is there a compliance issue? Only for elective credit for the AA Degree.

In some departments, 900’s currently meet degree and program requirements. Mark and Richard will check into this.

  • Mark and Richard offered to work on proposed changes to the 900 forms and bring it back to the Curriculum Committee for the April 7th meeting.
  • Revised forms will be used for Spring 2005 experimental course requests.

8.Relationship and communication protocol between Curriculum Committee and Academic Senate and Departments

This agenda topic was tabled for discussion at the next meeting of the Curriculum Committee on March 17th.

9.Evaluation of the Retreat

Did we accomplish our goals?

The members felt the committee had covered a lot of ground towards establishing standards and best practices in writing course outlines of record. COOR. The format for the day worked well. The planning done by the Steering Committee and background research and preparation by the presenters made a huge difference. We were able to cover a lot in half a day.

10. Next steps:

  • Determine timeline to implement changes –

-Revise forms in Spring 2004, Review at April 7th, 2004 meeting of Curriculum Committee

COOR form and Glossary (Myra, Kiran, Laurie, Ken)

900 form and supplement (Mark, Richard)

Pre-/co-requisite form (Nancy, Kiran)

-Upload revised forms (and sample or model forms) to LMC Curriculum Committee website in April 2004

-Educate LMC community in late Spring 2004 and early Fall 2005

-Use revised forms and process for the 2005-06 catalog for course outlines submitted to the Curriculum Committee in Fall 2004

-Beta-test electronic document management software to develop, submit and approve course outlines in Fall 2004

  • Educate the LMC community on course development best practices and changes to forms – at All College Day in August 2004, Department Chair meetings, presentation to Academic Senate
  • Develop and publicize Curriculum Committee resources

-Curriculum Committee Website

-Advisory committees – GE, Online, Ethnic Studies, Ethical Inquiry

-Reps on Curriculum Committee serve as mentors to their areas

-Develop FAQs prompts (to be discussed further)

-Glossary of terms

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